Prof. Richard Rose

A transition period comes to a close, and the UK will no longer have to follow European Union rules, Richard Rose examines how Brexit could be reversed in whole or part.

The negotiations between the UK government and the European Union make it quite clear that neither Boris Johnson nor Michel Barnier would buy a used car from the other on trust.

The European Union’s founders learned about, long before democracy became the touchstone for legitimacy. In the words of Jean Monnet, the behind-the-scenes organiser of the treaties, ‘I thought it wrong to consult the peoples of Europe’ since they had no practical experience of diplomatic negotiations and politics (1978: 367).  European institutions agreed between national governments […]

The accusation of Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator on Brexit, that the Prime Minister is backsliding on his commitments rests on a false premise: it assumes that Boris Johnson knows his back from his front. In fact, the Prime Minister has slid into a half-circle position that is 180 degrees distant from that of […]

The government’s approach to building a post-Brexit trade policy appears based on Zen philosophy rather than economics. In economics textbooks, trade is a two-handed exchange between two people, an exporter and an importer, and one of these is foreign.